Britain Announces Inquiry into Killing of Ex-K.G.B. MI6 Officer
By ALAN COWELLJULY 22, 2014
LONDON — Almost eight years after Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former K.G.B. whistle-blower, was poisoned to death in London with radioactive polonium, the British authorities announced on Tuesday that a public inquiry would be held into his death, permitting investigators to explore whether Russian leaders ordered the killing.
At a time when President Vladimir V. Putin faces mounting Western opprobrium for his support of pro-Russian separatists after the downing of a Malaysian jetliner over eastern Ukraine, the announcement from Theresa May, the British home secretary, could be seen by Moscow as a further rebuke.
“It is more than seven years since Mr. Litvinenko’s death, and I very much hope that this inquiry will be of some comfort to his widow,” Ms. May said in a written statement to Parliament.
The announcement reflected a remarkable about-face by the government of Prime Minister David Cameron, which has long resisted demands by Mr. Litvinenko’s supporters for scrutiny of any role in his death by the Russian state or the British intelligence services.
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Plans to hold an inquest led by a senior judge, Sir Robert Owen, were dropped after the British Foreign Office invoked national security interests to prevent the inquest from even considering whether Moscow played a part in the killing or whether British intelligence could have prevented it.
The judge said last year that the restrictions made it impossible to hold a “fair and fearless” inquest, and he urged the establishment of a public inquiry that would be empowered to hold closed-door sessions about involvement by the Kremlin or MI6, the British foreign intelligence agency. Ms. Litvinenko has said her husband was a paid agent of MI6 at the time he was killed. He and his family had been granted British citizenship weeks before his death.
The British government initially refused to hold a public inquiry but, in February, three judges ordered Ms. May to reconsider. In her announcement on Tuesday, Ms. May said it would be up to Sir Robert, the judge, to make arrangements for the inquiry.
SOURCE - New York Times - here.
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COMMENT
A public inquiry to be held behind closed doors?
EU-NATO IMPERIALISM ❌ 